Mr. Rait has already
done such work in connection with Mary Queen of Scots, and Mr. Archer
did it admirably in connection with the Third Crusade.
But apart from the importance of consulting original sources--which is
like hearing the very witnesses themselves in court--there is a factor
in historical judgment which by some unhappy accident is peculiarly
lacking in the professional historian. It is a factor to which no
particular name can be attached, though it may be called a department of
common sense. But it is a mental power or attitude easily recognizable
in those who possess it, and perhaps atrophied by the very atmosphere of
the study. It goes with the open air with a general knowledge of men and
with that rapid recognition of the way in which things "fit in" which is
necessarily developed by active life.
For instance, when you know the pace at which Harold marched down from
the north to Hastings you recognize, if you use that factor of historic
judgment of which I spake, that the affair was not barbaric. There must
have been fairly good roads, and there must have been a high
organization of transport. You have only to consider for a moment what a
column looks like, even if it be only a brigade, to see the truth of
that. Again, this type of judgment forbids anyone who uses it to ascribe
great popular movements (great massacres, great turmoils, and so forth)
to craft.
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